SALARY AND EDUCATION OF RURAL SCHOOL

PERSONNEL

STATUS AND TRENDS

FR

ROM TIME to time the Office of Education has gathered and published 1 data showing the salaries and education of the teachers and principals of rural schools, by States, and summarized for the Nation as a whole. For 4 years, 1921 to 1925, data concerning salaries in these schools were gathered and published annually; since 1925, at 5-year intervals. The school year 1934-35 rounded out the 5-year interval since the last study. The data here presented are for that school year.

Questionnaires similar to those used in the previous studies were sent to the 3,445 county and other superintendents 2 in charge of rural schools in 1934-35. Thesc school officers were requested to furnish data for all teachers and principals employed in the schools under their jurisdiction except those in population centers of 2,500 or more and those operating as independent school districts. Accordingly, this study concerns schools under the administrative supervision of county, district, union, and similar types of superintendents and located in the open country or in villages and towns of fewer than 2,500 population.

The teachers were grouped according to the size and location of the schools in which they were employed. This classification will be helpful in more definitely placing the problems revealed by the study by types of rural school communities represented. Data are, therefore, presented separately for one-teacher schools, two-teacher schools, schools of three to six teachers located in the open country, schools of three to six teachers located in villages or towns, schools of seven

1 Summers, Alex. Salaries of teachers in rural schools in 1922. U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education. Rural School Circular No. 5.

The salaries of country teachers in 1923. U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education. Rural School Leaflet No. 24.

Salaries of rural teachers and length of school term in 1924. U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education. Rural School Leaflet No. 39.

Gaumnitz, W. H. Salaries and salary trends of teachers in rural schools. U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education. Bulletin 1929, No. 6.

Status of teachers and principals employed in the rural schools of the United States. U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Education. Bulletin 1932, No. 3.

* Includes county and other superintendents in charge of the administration of rural schools. These officials are known in Virginia as “division superintendents," in New York and Utah as "district superintendents," in Nevada as "deputy State superintendents," in Louisiana as "parish superintendents," and in the New England States as "union superintendents." Data were gathered and tabulated separately for white and for Negro schools.

or more teachers located in the open country, and for schools of seven or more teachers located in the villages and towns.

It proved impracticable to separate data for teachers of elementary and secondary schools, as many rural high schools are small and operated in connection with the grade schools. Teachers often divide their time between the elementary and high-school grades, particularly in music, art, agriculture, manual training, and the like. Four out of every five of the principals with whom this study is concerned supervised elementary as well as secondary schools. In the data presented for the larger rural schools there are, therefore, some highschool teachers, the proportion to the whole being comparatively small. Those for the smaller schools relate wholly, or almost wholly, to elementary teachers.

Usable data on salaries were returned by superintendents of 52.9 percent of the school officials to whom the questionnaires were sent. (See table 1.) From eight of the States-Delaware, Maryland, Washington, Wyoming, Nevada, Iowa, Utah, and Indiana-data were received from more than three-fourths of the counties. The first two named showed a return of 100 percent, providing the information from the State superintendents' files. States from which fewer than half of the counties reported totaled 16; of these all but 3 were in the Southern sections of the United States. From three States fewer than one-fourth of the counties reported.

A total of 1,488 separate questionnaires were sent to the county school officers of the 17 States maintaining separate school systems for the races. Of these, 389, or an average of 26.1 percent returned usable data relating to the salary situation (see table 2) in the Negro schools. In each case, except Maryland, Delaware, South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama, the proportion of the counties reporting data for these schools was markedly smaller than for the white schools. It is probable that in many of the counties of the remaining States, especially in the border States of Missouri, Texas, and West Virginia, there were no Negro teachers, or their number was so small as to be regarded as insignificant by the reporting officers.

Data were received for 183,733 white teachers, 13,072 Negro teachers, 7,569 white principals of rural schools, and 131 principals of Negro schools, making a total of 204,505 rural school workers. (See tables 1, 2, and 9.) The numbers of teachers for whom data were supplied are large, even in those States from which the smallest percent of counties reported. Reports from Arkansas, for example, from which 17.3 percent of the counties responded, involved a total of 1,523 teachers and principals of rural schools. The large number of rural teachers involved in this study gives assurance that the data presented in the succeeding tables are fairly representative of the actual situation.

Of all of the teachers for whom data were reported the largest group was that employed in the one-room schools, representing 36.2 percent of the total (tables 1 and 2); 11.1 percent were employed in twoteacher schools; 15.9 percent in schools of three to six teachers in the open country; 3.4 percent in village schools of three to six teachers; 14.2 in open country schools of seven teachers or more; and 19.2 percent in village schools employing seven or more teachers. These percentages vary greatly for the individual States. Some States, e. g., North Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Florida, have few one-teacher schools. On the other hand, in some of the middle and western States, e. g., South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, and Nebraska, more than two-thirds of the rural teachers were in oneteacher schools. Even in such populous States as Pennsylvania and New York approximately one-third of the teachers reported were teaching in one-teacher schools.

MEDIAN SALARIES IN 1935, BY STATES, BY TYPES OF RURAL SCHOOLS, AND BY RACES

The salaries in the different classes of rural schools in medians are presented by States for whites and Negroes in tables 3 and 4. The median salary is the one located exactly at the midpoint when all salaries for a given group of teachers of a given State are arranged from the smallest to the largest amount of money paid each teacher. Fifty percent of the teachers, therefore, received salaries for the school year 1934-35 which were higher than these medians and 50 percent of them received smaller amounts. In some States-Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Texas, and Washington-the salaries of teachers of the one-room schools range from $200 per year on one extreme to more than $1,200 per year on the other; and in other StatesConnecticut, Delaware, Indiana, and New York, they cluster closely together. The narrower ranges are usually found in States in which comparatively high salaries are paid to rural teachers and in which State-wide salary schedules are followed.

There are also wide differences among the salaries in the various States, the several types of rural schools, and the two racial groups. In Arkansas the median salary for white teachers of one-room schools was $260; in California it was $1,208, a difference of nearly $1,000 between the State with the highest median salary and that with the lowest. As the rural schools become larger the median salaries become progressively higher, ranging for the Nation as a whole from $535 in the one-teacher white schools to $979 in the white schools of seven or more teachers located in the villages and the towns. But for the several classes of teachers the differentials between the State paying the highest salary and that paying the lowest remain about the same, i. e. about $1,000.

In the Negro schools the differences are similar to those pointed out for the white schools, except that the ranges are for the most part narrower. Generally speaking, the salaries of the Negro teachers are only about half those for the whites. Those of Delaware and West Virginia, however, are exceptions. In these States the salaries of the Negro teachers average nearly $1,000 per year and they are fully as high as those of the white teachers, if not higher.

SALARY TRENDS BY STATES AND BY TYPES OF RURAL SCHOOLS

Data showing State by State trends in the salary medians of rural teachers and principals are presented for the various types of schools and for 5-year intervals in tables 5 to 7, medians for the various classes of teachers being available for 1925, 1930, and 1935, and for the principals for 1930 and 1935. Besides showing the gain or loss in the salary status of rural school employees over a period of time, including the critical period of the recent economic depression, these medians show the salaries paid when the data for whites and Negroes are combined by States and by classes of schools.

While the medians combining the data for the two races indicate much the same salary conditions as those shown in tables 3 and 4, they reveal the fact that the greatest reductions took place in the smaller schools and in those States where rural school salaries have always been in the middle or lower salary brackets. In Michigan the salaries in one-teacher schools were reduced more than 50 percent during the period from 1930 to 1935; in four other States-Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota-the median salaries for these schools were lowered from 40 to 50 percent; and in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, from 35 to 40 percent. It is significant that all the States, except Michigan, which are cited here as showing the most serious salary cuts are in the midwest, apparently reflecting the agricultural difficulties of this region. In a few instances, for example, the one-teacher schools of Virginia and Kentucky, the salaries remained fairly constant for the period; in Delaware and West Virginia substantial gains rather than losses were recorded.

RURAL SCHOOL SALARIES COMPARED WITH THOSE IN CITY SCHOOLS

Data presented in table 8 summarize for the Nation as a whole the salary status of the several classes of rural teachers and make possible comparisons with salaries of teachers employed in the cities classified on a population basis. The table reveals that salary reductions due to the depression fell heaviest upon the teachers in the smallest rural schools and lightest upon those employed in the largest cities. In